The Lady B——, whose features were my first,
Was well endowed with beauties that are rare,
Well read, well spoken—had, indeed, a mind
With which few of the sex called tender can compare.
But the old bachelor had all the ways
Of one grown fidgety in solitude;
And he at once in matters not his own
Began unseemly and untimely to intrude.
What is the difference between a cloud and a whipped child? One pours with rain, the other roars with pain!
When will water stop running down hill? Why, when it gets to the bottom.
Why are doctors always wicked men? Because the worse people are the more they are with them!
If a dirty sick man be ordered to wash to get well, why is it like four letters of the alphabet? Because it’s soapy cure (it’s o-p-q-r)!
What sort of a medical man is a horse that never tumbles down like? An ’ack who’s sure (accoucheur)!
My father was a slippery lad, and died ’fore I was born,
My ancestors lived centuries before I gained my form.
I always lived by sucking, I ne’er ate any bread,
I wasn’t good for anything till after I was dead.
They bang’d and they whang’d me, they turned me outside in,
They threw away my body, saved nothing but my skin.
When I grew old and crazy—was quite worn out and thin,
They tore me all to pieces, and made me up again.
And then I traveled up and down the country for a teacher,
To some of those who saw me, I was good as any preacher.
Flax.